What Shall Be Thy Amends?
by Razgriz Ace
Summary: "Do you know how twisted that feels? We have nothing. We are nothing," she hisses, "and I still felt like I had cheated." After going to bed with Colin Hunt, Kate comes to terms with what she wants and what Castle deserves. Season 4, AU post The Limey.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I've been crafting this one out for a while, but with the sudden upheaval of 'Kate makes bad decisions' fics out there I thought now could be a good time to post. I have most of it done so the updates should be swift. This should be 1 of 3. Set after The Limey.

A/N 2: I've made this edit in the hope of respectfully saving all of us some headache. Please note that with this story it's my intention to present flawed human characters, and not to offend anyone. This first chapter is a prologue of sorts that discusses Kate having slept with Colin Hunt. If that is going to upset you please refrain from reading. I ask that if you do choose to continue reading and you completely hate everything about this story that you please refrain from using the word "slut" or any variations there of to describe any female character when commenting.

Hope that clears some stuff up. Though I'm probably just feeding the trolls. :D

* * *

Kate runs her hands along the forearm draped around her waist, gently scraping her nails against the coarse hair there. Her bare back is pressed against a firm sculpted chest, the sheets of the expensive airport hotel cooling her skin.

Typically such an athletic round would leave her spent and drifting off to sleep. The burning in her chest has subsided a little, the desperate need for human connection temporarily satisfied. But there's a hollowness there now instead.

"You know I think I might be a little offended," Detective Inspector Hunt husks into her ear.

"Hm?" She tilts her head back into his shoulder, and forces a soft smile on her lips. Whatever her feelings might be at the moment, none of this is his fault.

"I've never slept with a woman and had her thinking of some else after. My pride is a little wounded."

She sighs and rolls over to look at him.

"I'm sorry." She means it. During drinks Colin's phone had blipped with a text that his flight had been delayed another several hours. He had decided to get a room rather than wait at the bar and invited her back. She'd said yes.

It was an attempt to be spontaneous. Fun and uncomplicated. In the moment it was both. Now it was neither.

"For what?" Hunt scoffs. "Kate my flight leaves in-" he checks the clock on the mahogany end table, "three hours. I knew what this was."

"Still we shouldn't have-"

"Enjoyed each other's-" he leers at her in a playful way that reminds her of Castle, "company?" Her heart flies into her throat.

"This isn't me." It's true. No matter how thoroughly they had just enjoyed each other's company.

"I'm not really a one night stand sort of fellow either," he admits.

So they used each other? That actually made her feel better. A tiny bit.

Kate sits up, holding the sheet to her breastbone with one hand, marking sure to keep her scar covered. She's a single modern woman, free to do as she pleases. She absolutely shouldn't feel bad about this. Blood pumps a little faster through her chest- a clear indicator of the lie she's telling herself, telling everyone- and it's violent enough that it would have spiked a polygraph if she were hooked up.

She's not free.

"I feel like I've had an affair," she confesses. She cards a hand roughly through her hair and exhales a frustrated sigh.

To his credit Hunt doesn't look the least bit freaked. He sits up next to her and weaves his fingers into hers. "The writer?"

"The writer."

"You want to talk about it?"

"I think I just did," she says, the realization hitting hard. "He's running around with a stewardess and I feel like I've betrayed him for having fantastic sex with a hunk from Scotland Yard."

"That does balm my ego a little. Does he know you're in love with him?"

"Admittedly neither of us are great with our communication. Or timing."

She proceeds to give Colin the censored cliff notes of the past few years, suddenly keen to talk to a neutral party who isn't her therapist.

He lets out a long slow whistle as she finishes. "That sounds well and truly fucked, Love," he says.

She laughs at that. He's a good man. And isn't that just her MO. Using a good man she feels nothing for to protect her heart.

"I've never felt like this," she admits. "I spend half my day hoping he leaves forever, and the other half hoping he'll tell me he loves me again." She looks at Hunt and covers her face with her hands. "God, I'm sorry. This wasn't- I didn't," she sighs. "You don't want to hear about this."

She moves to stand, to find her clothes, and dresses quickly.

"Would it help if I said I think he's a fool?" Colin asks.

She offers him a lopsided smile in return as she finishes buttoning her blouse. She tosses him his pants. "Come on. Even for Detective Inspectors getting through customs is a bitch. I'll walk back over there with you."

The mirth shines in his eyes as he begins to get dressed too.

They walk quietly in step until they get to the security check-point. The silence between them is amiable and part of her hopes they can stay friends.

"Kate, thank you for everything. You infused some good into this otherwise bleak time."

"You're welcome. Have a safe trip back."

He leans in and gives her a half hug, "Can I give you my penny's worth before I go?"

"Okay."

"Stop waiting. Whatever you're afraid of ruining with him is already ruined. Telling him the truth, getting to the bottom of it all might save that you have or it might end it forever. You need one or the other. If I learned anything this past week it's the importance of closure."

She nods at him, "Thank you."

"Would it be too cheesy of me to say maybe in another time and another place?"

"Yes," she says, then bumps his shoulder as an endearment. "It's been a pleasure."

"It certainly has Detective." He gives her an exaggerated wink and a wave as he enters the weaving rope of the security line.

She watches him go, his advice still reverberating through her head.

* * *

A/N: That's part one. I hoped you liked it, and if you didn't I ask that you please be respectful in discussing why you hated it.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: So last chapter was a learning experience. Jiminy Christmas! I should have worn some Kevlar! I've never written anything quite so unpopular. That said, for those of you not sharpening your pitch forks to skewer me, here's chapter 2! :D

But before we begin, I'll quickly get on my soap box again to point out that the words "slut" and "whore" are never appropriate things to call a woman fictional or otherwise. Please refrain from using them in your reviews.

* * *

It's another month before she works up the courage to confront Castle. If she were being honest it's not even courage that finally spurs her into action. It's the white hot seer of jealousy. She's at the precinct alone filling out forms and fuming.

She sent the boys home after their case, and had been hoping Castle would stick around to needle her. He never did paperwork, wasn't even legally allowed to, but before his asshole regression the past few months he would often stick around and keep her company. He'd play Fruit Ninja or Angry Birds on his phone and provide her with a running commentary of his progress. She'd threaten to shoot him about a dozen times, and he would remind her that that would only end in more paperwork. Then they would hit Remy's or The Old Haunt after. It was always nice.

But tonight he had danced around showing Ryan the photo of the busty blonde waitress who was coming over to his place, and then left in a flurry. It was the first time Beckett had ever accidentally snapped a pen. It had taken her fifteen minutes the clean the ink off her desk and another hour to finish off her files.

The boil had been slow, but as she closed her last manila folder she couldn't take it anymore. Another quarter hour and she finds herself outside Castle's door knocking hard.

"Beckett?!" Shock is written all over his face as he answers, pulling the door open a little less than half way.

"Rick we need to talk," she says, and her voice doesn't waver the way she had expected it. His hair is slicked back, wet from the shower, and he's in a wrinkled t-shirt and boxers. She doesn't feel particularly intimidating, but the color drains from his face at her words.

"Ricky is that the sushi?" a high pitched voice calls from his office. The new blonde, Jessica, bounces around the corner. Her bare legs stick out from his bathrobe and Kate's heart plummets into her stomach. She wants to vomit on Castle's bare feet, but she holds her ground.

"Can I catch you later Beckett? We're waiting for Sushi Dojo." He waggles his eyebrows in the perfect imitation of the shallow douchebag he's been playing lately. The carefree look doesn't quite reach his eyes, and it allows her a tiny bit of confidence.

Kate takes a step into the loft, pushing open the door and crossing the threshold, committing to this fight and a dozen other things she doesn't want to think about. "No Castle," she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and repeats herself, "We need to talk. Now."

"Ricky?" the blonde slides up behind him and rests her head on his shoulder. "What's going on? Who is this?"

Castle jolts forward out of the woman's touch, and Kate feels another stab of hope as something akin to terror lights up his eyes. He speaks, but doesn't take his eyes off of Kate.

"Jess, I'm sorry. You need to leave."

"What?!" the blonde shrieks, sizing up Kate as if she's ready for a cat-fight. Kate leans her shoulders back, towers a full six feet with the aid of the heels on her boots and Jess unconsciously takes a step back.

"I'll call you," Castle says, finally turning his attention to the waitress.

In a huff the other woman stomps to the bedroom. The two minutes it takes her to dress and reemerge feel like a year. Kate can not hide how heavily she is breathing in the silence. Jess pushes past her, bumping her shoulder harder than necessary as she exits.

"Bitch," Jess tosses over her shoulder.

Kate just takes another step into the loft and gently closes the door behind her. When she turns to face him, the fear in his eyes is replaced with a coldness, and she's certain that this is going to be her biggest heartbreak since she was nineteen.

"What do you want Beckett?" he asks.

"I want this to stop Castle," she meets his eye. "I can't do this anymore."

"Do what?"

"This. Whatever is left here. I can't stay locked into it."

He scoffs loudly, venomously. "Stay? You're not locked. You're not in it at all. You never have been."

"I'm sorry," she says, not sure what the words are worth.

"You should go," he replies.

It's cold and she's done taking that from him. She pokes him hard in the chest. In other circumstances it would be comical, but his eyes darken and he bristles even further. She moves further into the loft, seeking to gain ground on his turf.

"I spent the night with Colin Hunt last month, and since then I haven't been able to focus on anything but how I had been unfaithful to you." He's looking away from her and she side steps to force his eyes to hers. "Do you know how twisted that feels? We have nothing. We are nothing," she hisses. "And I still felt like I had cheated."

He looks simultaneously furious and devastated. "What exactly do you want from me? Permission? Sleep with whoever you want, Beckett!"

"Why because that's what you're doing?! Bedding flight attendants and waitresses. God Castle, at least I didn't sleep with Colin with the intent to punish you!"

Never before has she seen him this angry. Knuckles are white as he clenches his fists at his side, eyes almost black with rage. "No, you slept with him because apparently you would rather be with anyone than someone who loves you."

"Oh, that's how you're going to play this," she counters. "Alright then. I heard you that day in the cemetery. I lied about it because I was confused and hurting, and didn't know how to deal with those feelings. I've been in therapy this past year, trying to be better so we could have the chance we deserved. Just when I thought we were close you decided you would rather be a playboy. So I tried to move on too, and realized I can't."

"You. Need. To. Leave." He grits the words out.

As scary as his expression is, Kate doesn't fear him, knows in her core that he would never physically hurt her. She leans in putting her nose inches from his. "No," she says defiantly.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" he explodes.

He turns away after his outburst, but she ducks around to keep him in front of her. "I want my partner back. I want my best friend back. I can't watch you with these bimbos on your arm anymore. I can't watch as you regress into that bored careless jackass you were four years ago!"

He let's out a sharp cold laugh. "You have a lot of nerve, Beckett. I'll give you that."

She swallows hard, blinks to keep back the tears that are burning behind her eyes. He opens his mouth to speak again, probably to tell her off, but she steps closer to him and beats him to the punch. "I get it, Castle. I waited too long." Her voice does crack then, and she clears her throat before continuing. "I'm sorry I couldn't get there faster or tell you sooner. I'm sorry about Colin. I hate myself for a lot of things, but mostly I hate that I ever made you feel undeserving, because there's never been a man more worthy of love."

His expression shifts quickly, goes unreadable, but at least there is something other than anger in his eyes. She sees him swallow heavily and kick at the floor a little, and she can't help but wonder which emotions he's trying to hold back. "You don't get to do this," he says.

Her hand cards roughly through her hair. She's on a roll now and she's going to get everything out even if it means the end of them. "You don't get to do this either. I'm the coward here Castle, not you. You get to move on. I understand that. I have no say in what you do or who you see. I'm complicated and I'm not fun. I hide in subtext and let you hide in innuendo. And maybe you deserve better than me, but you sure as hell should get better than that," she points to the door where Jess just exited.

He opens his mouth a few times, but only a strangled noise comes out. She's rendered the man who never shuts up speechless. It's a small victory, but she'll take it.

"You should have someone real. Someone who sees just you. Someone who loves you as completely as I do." She pauses, wipes her eyes and clears her voice. "I've done a shit job of showing it, but I do love you. I can endure a lot Castle, I'll survive losing you, but if you ever cared about me at all you won't make me watch that, watch you chase less than you deserve."

Silence follows. A long stretching silence that fills every crevice in the room. She studies the floorboards for a moment, wiping her eyes before lifting her head. She's startled to find his eyes are wet too. There's a silent plea in the shake of her head, a need for him to say anything. He can throw her out, tell her he needs time, laugh in her face. Anything.

"I've been looking into your mom's case on my own!" It comes out in a burst, just short of yelling, as if the words had been pressurizing inside him and finally broke through his seams. There's both shame and relief in the confession, and if she thought she didn't have her footing before, she's in a god damned landslide now.

Her shock is total, and she doesn't know if she actually forms the question to ask him to elaborate, or if he launches into the explanation of his own accord. The world around her seems to blur and buzz as she's told of secret phone calls and mysterious rendezvouses with a man called Smith. Castle is darkly animated as she backs toward the door. He's desperate. Possessed.

He starts trying to justify. Explaining that he was protecting her, trying to do his best for everyone involved. Her own confessions have left her cracked open and raw. This, is just too much. She doesn't want to hear anymore.

Just then there's a loud knock on the door. "Sushi!" a squeaky male voice calls from the other side of the door.

Everything breaks then. Kate suddenly feels ridiculous. The pubescent call of the delivery boy reminds her that Rick was bedding another woman less than a half hour ago.

"I can't do this," she breathes. And brushes past the teenager in the door way. Castle doesn't call out to her as she makes her way down the hall.

The elevator doors ping open and she doesn't look back as she steps in. She knows she's running away, and yet she can't seem to bring herself to stop. After all, hiding is what she's best at.

* * *

A/N: If anyone needs me I will be seeking cover until the next round of shelling is over. ;) Part three should be up soon-ish and will be decidedly lighter.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: So somewhere along the line this fic became a cannon ball through the gates of _Castle_ Fort Sumter. Call me crazy, but I'm getting the sense that people out there have some lingering frustration with Kate Beckett, who maybe I should remind everyone is a fictional character. lol

Oh well. Here's the last part. Thank you everyone for coming on this odd journey with me.

* * *

Castle realizes, standing with a baffled sushi delivery boy watching Kate step into the elevator, that this could be how they ended. He could let her go, chalk the last four years of his life up to some terrible misstep, and move on.

Yet, he still wants Kate Beckett. Whether that makes him stupid or stubborn or some combination thereof he's not certain. So he throws the entire contents of his wallet at the poor teenager with the bag of food, then still in his t-shirt and boxers, takes off down the hall.

The elevator creeps back up to his floor far too slow for his liking. Instead, he hits the stairs, taking the hard concrete two or three at a time in his bare feet.

He's not entirely sure what he'll do if he catches her. He's still angry and hurt, but he's also still insanely in love with her, and he refuses to let her run from the first real progress they've ever made. There are no secrets between them and as her partner he needs to make her face this.

He bursts out of the stairwell and immediately looks to the large glass doors of the lobby. There's no sign of her and he races outside, hoping the frigid temperature meant that it was taking her a minute to find a cab.

It's cold. To his right there's a woman hiking up the collar of her coat to shield off the whipping wind. Across the street, a family struggles to hail a taxi, an already bundled up little girl half hiding in her Dad's coat. To the left a stray cat harrasses the doorman of the neighboring building. Kate is nowhere to be seen.

Castle sags and slinks his way back into the lobby. If he's going to chase her so that they can finish fighting at her place he really should put on some pants. And probably a coat or something.

Shock finds him for the third time that night when he reenters the building. Kate is standing at the elevator head in one hand. Her back is to him and she's got her other hand poised next to the call button, paused in indecision. A minute passes and neither of them moves.

It dawns upon him that this is the real moment of truth. He can chase her until the end of eternity, but it will mean nothing if she doesn't stop running, doesn't let him catch her.

Her hand drops away from the call button and his heart sinks. Then a half step turn away, followed by a clumsy pirouette back and she returns to staring down the button. None of her typical grace is present and if he hadn't been with her mere moments ago he would be concerned that she had been drinking.

She bends, hands on her knees, in an apparent attempt to catch her breathe. The inner battle is raging. Head vs heart. Instinct vs need. It's beautiful and terrible, and though it makes him feel a little like a voyeur he can't find it in himself to look away.

Kate straightens, rolls her neck from side to side, and from behind he can see the determination as she sets her shoulders, knows what she's chosen the second before she does it. As her index finger makes contact, the little round arrow button lights up and so does everything inside Castle. All other emotions inside him are muted by the resounding call of hope.

It might be the first time in his entire life that he's watched someone choose him.

His feet have him by her side before he stops to consider any other option.

"Kate," he breathes, jumping into the elevator next to her.

"Castle?" she startles at his sudden appearance.

"I took the stairs," he explains, hitting the button for his floor.

Embarrassment pinks her ears as the elevator starts to move. "I was," she starts, glancing at the floor. "I... shouldn't have left that way."

It nearly sounds like a question, and there is no hint of an apology in it. It's clear she still thinks going home would have been her better option. The fact that she's going against that thought for him is heartening, but maybe, she isn't wholly wrong.

"We still have a lot to talk about," he says.

"I know," she confirms, gesturing to the elevator around them to highlight the fact that she is there. There's frustration in the movement, the calmness between them buckling under the strain of their fight.

"How about we pick this up tomorrow?" he asks.

"You'd be okay with that?" she counters, relief evident in every word.

"We've both dumped a lot on each other tonight. Some of it fair, some of it not so much. I think we should unpack all that before round two. Don't you?"

She nods. "That was a much healthier way to put it than my way," she adds wryly.

"You came back," he says seriously. He needs her to know that's the part he's going to take away from this.

They hit his floor and she stays in the elevator as he steps off.

"Goodnight, Rick." A thousand emotions are alight in her eyes.

"Until tomorrow, Kate."

This time when the elevator doors close it's not another wound on his soul.

/

Unpacking was his idea, so he pours himself a hefty scotch and sits in his office to consider their emotional MMA bout.

The hardest thing to accept is that she hadn't been wrong about him. He had been blaming her his broken heart, justifying his actions as harmless fun, just him blowing off steam. But he is a grown man and being irresponsible is not as fun as it was in his twenties. It really wasn't fun at all if he's honest, in truth it never had been. It was the same pattern of immature behavior that had landed him in Meredith's arms after Kyra left him.

Both Alexis and Martha had hinted at it, tried to gently tell him that he was being an ass, but Kate had to bludgeon him in the head with it for him to really get it. For a best selling author he really should be better at reading subtext.

None of it had been to consciously hurt Kate, but her accusation leaves him wondering if at some base caveman level it is true. It is. A part of him had wanted to flaunt what she was missing, wanted to punish her for lying, for not loving him. Recognizing it leaves him sufficiently disgusted with himself.

She had lied. She had withheld. But instead of confronting her he had chosen to act like a wounded frat-boy. That was on him.

Still, that was not the most important part of the conversation.

She had told him she loved him. She loved him and wanted to see him have more, even if it wasn't with her. That was...big.

Her confession also told him that she's more damaged by her past than he ever knew. Finding out someone loves, someone you admittedly love in return, shouldn't put you into therapy for a year. But then he tries to put himself in her shoes.

Kate Beckett is a woman who had spent her entire adult life not being enough for the people she loved. She wasn't enough to keep her father from falling into the bottle after her mother was killed. She wasn't enough to keep Royce from leaving the force or from betraying her down the road. She wasn't enough to stop Sorenson from choosing his job over her. She wasn't enough for Montgomery to tell her the truth.

That fear of inadequacy coupled with being caught in the middle of a conspiracy based in her mother's murder, where her mentor was also killed and someone tried to assassinate her...well he can't really imagine what it must be like in her brain. He's not sure he wouldn't be in a mental hospital if it were him. He can see why that trauma would lead her to lie. She had subconsciously sabotaged their relationship, and while she was working out what she had done, he proved to her what she had always feared, that she wasn't enough.

Jealousy flares through him at the thought of Colin Hunt, along with a sudden irrational desire to fly to London for the sole purpose of punching the Detective Inspector in the teeth. Then he thinks about Jess and realizes what drove Kate to his door tonight.

He hasn't forgiven her for lying, but hasn't really forgiven himself either. Yet, for the first time he thinks he can do both. Things are supremely profoundly screwed up, but he finally feels like he knows why. For tonight he can live with that.

He's just getting out of the shower the next morning when his phone buzzes with a text.

 _Went up to the cabin for the day. Need a little quiet._

Before he finds the energy to be angry, there is another buzz. He looks to see she's sent him the address.

He sits on the edge of his bed in his bath towel, unsure what to do. Should he respond right away? Make her wait? Should he take it as the clear invitation it is or tell her that they'll talk when she gets back?

It makes him think that he's acting like a teenage girl, but then he thinks that's disparaging to teenage girls. Alexis would have never gotten herself into this wrecked of a situation.

He's nearly panicking when there is yet another buzz.

 _It's a long drive. If you're not up for it I'll be back around 9._

She's giving him an out, putting time and space between them if he needs it. It all feels so serious, and he's so tired of not feeling like himself. He taps out his response and hits send before he can change his mind.

 _Well, I don't know if I'm comfortable with that. Meeting you at a cabin in the woods? There's too much open forest up there for you to bury my body._

A few minutes pass, and he fears that maybe humor was the wrong way to go. Then there's another buzz, and he can't stop the reflex smile that comes as he reads it.

 _Please, like I'd bother trying to hide you. I'd just have Lanie rule it an accident._

He responds with, _It's out of her jurisdiction! :P_

To that he gets, _Right. In that case would you mind bringing a shovel up with you?_

Yesterday she had said she wanted her best friend back. Even if the rest of this blew up in their faces, he thinks they can at least get back to that.

/

A few hours later he ends up upstate, outside the Beckett cabin, with a pathetically wilted bouquet of lilies, wishing harder than a ten year old blowing out Birthday candles that they can find a way to get through this.

He's standing outside her door for a full ten minutes without knocking before it flies open. She's on the other side a hand on her hip in frustration.

"Were you planning on lurking out here all day? I nearly shot you five minutes ago when you were looming in the window."

He thinks the words 'lurking' and 'looming' are a little ungenerous but for once he keeps his stupid mouth shut. "Can I come in?"

She looks wrung out, and it's another jab in his heart that they've done this to each other. She steps aside to let him pass.

The inside of the cabin is exactly as he pictured it. Full of modern conveniences but still rustic enough to be charming. The main room has large a TV is mounted over the fireplace and there's a cushy leather sofa facing it. The remote is on the mantle place covered with dust, and a large stack of well loved books sits on the sofa's end tables.

A large fake bear rug rests in the corner, rolled up from the hardwood floor, and he tries not to laugh. He immediately wants to know the story. Was it a gag gift? A silly purchase that she hates but her father loves for its tackiness? It's amusing until somehow his mind concocts the image of it rolled out in front of the fireplace, he and Kate luxuriating in the plush fake fur, skin and lips pressed together. . .

He shakes his head to knock the thought loose. Dear God, he really is a caveman sometimes. There's good odds that he's blown any chance he had of making any fantasy involving her come true.

Though it is progress that she invited him here. This is obviously her safe space. The place she comes to hide, to lick her wounds.

He realizes she's staring and that he's been looking blankly at the novelty rug. A throat clears and he isn't sure if it was him being even more awkward or her trying to make him speak.

"Are those for me?" she asks, nodding to the sad lilies he's holding.

The nearly ruined flowers aren't much of a conversation starter, but he recognizes a lifeline when he's tossed one. He holds them out dumbly.

"I...They looked better before...I mean...It was a long ride out here."

The lilies felt like a good and neutral peace offering when he left New York. Now he thinks even if they had fully survived the two hour drive they would still have been painfully inadequate for this situation. Cofee. He should have brought coffee. Apparently, he also needed to work on his symbolism.

She takes them from him and moves to the kitchenette in the corner. She fills an oversized glass with water and plucks out the dead stems from the bouquet. The surviving flowers are slid into the makeshift vase and Kate proceeds to pull off the most wilted petals. What's left looks surprisingly good.

"Wow, I didn't think they could be saved," he says, nudging a petal with his forefinger.

She puts the flowers on the small counter that separates the kitchen from the rest of the room. Her eyebrow is quirked at him and the corner of her mouth turns up. "That's a heavy handed metaphor, even for you Castle."

His head drops in mock shame. "What do you expect? My muse is truant."

"Easy Shakespeare. You go tossing that M word around and it won't be easy driving home with a broken nose."

"Broken nose is a step up from murdered in the woods. I'll take it!"

They both snicker. This feels like them and he likes it. Then as quick as it came the moment is over. He wants to say, "Hey, remember before we fell in love and we actually liked each other." Instead, he just watches as she leans back against the counter, arms folded, and gives him an expectant look.

She looks tired. Tired and vulnerable and disappointed. He thought he was more prepared for this, that he had arrived sword and shield in hand, ready to fight for them. Yet meeting her eyes he can't help but wish that she were actually some damsel trapped in a tower. A fire breathing dragon would be much easier to face than the dwindling flame in her eyes.

It's different than last night. The air between them isn't volatile, holds no charge of passion or anger. Everything just feels slow, weighed down...and sad. Heartbroken. Still, the hope hasn't left the edges of him.

"I feel like it's just before Christmas 1996," he says.

That gets him a confused look. "Christmas '96?"

He nods vigorously. "I almost strangled myself with a strand of twinkle lights. I ended up with one sleeve stapled to one side of the door frame, and Alexis hanging from the other side after I accidentally stapled her diaper to the wall."

She wrinkles her nose. "I'm not sure I follow."

"I find I'm once again in a painfully tangled mess of something that was supposed to be beautiful."

She drops her head and lets out a huff, whether a laugh or a sigh he's not entirely certain.

"How's that for metaphor?" he asks.

"Not bad," she lifts her head, "a little corny, but what else is new."

"You wound me."

When she looks back up at him she's easier to read than he ever remembers. 'Confession in expression' was what she called it in the interrogation room, and he sees what she's not saying. _I don't know how to do this. I'm sorry. I don't know how we fix this._

"I'm sorry," he says, because while he got her full apology he never offered his. "I never - I would never intentionally hurt you Kate. I've done so many things wrong this last year, and I'm so sorry for not talking to you, for jumping to all the wrong conclusions, and being an asshole."

She nods accepting his words. "We made this mess together," she offers.

"That we did," he says. "The one thing I won't apologize for is trying to protect you."

That hangs there for a moment before she pushes off the counter and comes toward him. "I've done a lot of thinking since I've been up here. If the situation were reversed, if you were the one they were after, I don't know that I would have told you either." She side steps him to sit down on the sofa. He follows her lead and sits on the far end. "You need to stop though," she says. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but leave it alone."

"Someone has to do it."

She shakes her head, "No. Last night and this morning I've been sorting out what we said to each other. I thought I needed to solve it to be who I wanted to be, but since I dove back in all this case has done is cause more pain and ruin the most important thing in my life."

It's the most grounded and refreshing way he's ever heard her speak about her mother's case. Her look to him is meaningful, and he doesn't know how to express the warmth that floods through him at hearing that their partnership is the most important thing in her life. So instead he closes a little of the distance between them.

"I took that genie out of the bottle," he says. He's ashamed of it. That he presumed to know better than her when it came to the subject of her mother.

She turns her head toward him, but her eyeline is over him studying the far wall. "You were trying to help," she defends.

Still, all of their pain, every terrible decision they've made, can be traced back in some way to Joanna Beckett being stabbed in an alleyway when Kate was nineteen. She had told him to leave it alone, that she didn't like the person she became with that case on her shoulders, but he had pried opened Pandora's box anyway. It made her sins more forgivable.

"Do you really think you can let it go?"

"I can promise I'm going to try. I needed to fall back down that rabbit hole, because hitting rock bottom was the only way to truly start climbing back out. My mom wouldn't have wanted this life for me. Maybe one day we'll find the smoking gun. Maybe we won't. Regardless, we need to put the cross down. No one else needs to die for this."

"I'll let it go," he nods, a tiny bit less angry, and a tiny bit more in love.

"Thank you."

It's one giant hurdle cleared, but there are about a thousand left to go.

"We talked the other day about what I deserve," he pauses when she raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Okay you yelled the other day about what I deserve," he corrects himself, and she offers him half a smile. "You seem to be under the impression that I have moved on. I'm not sure there is any moving on after you. You have been and still are the only one I want. I've done an even shittier job of showing than you have, but I love you Kate Beckett. All of you. I never stopped."

She drops her eyes to his, glistening hazel wide with reflected hope. "What are you saying?"

"Whether we like it or not we're already in this. That's why other people have left us feeling hollow and guilty. We love each other. Now that that's clear, now that we've put it out there, it has to be enough. It has to be, because if it's not, why the hell does anything in this world matter?"

Shit. He's made her cry again, but as she reaches out offering her hand he feels the relief. "We both deserve better than we've given each other," she says.

"We do. But before this last year we brought out the best in one another," he points out as he takes her hand. "We can get back there."

They sit in silence then just holding hands. Neither of them move, as if afraid to disturb the mending shards of their non-relationship that they are gluing together around them.

"Our communication sucks," she says finally.

Maybe it's because the words have broken a too long silence or maybe it's something in her tone, but the statement makes him laugh. A full, solid, real laugh.

"The NYPD would like to present Katherine Beckett with the understatement of the year award," he says. She laughs too then, and everything feels a smidgen less heavy.

She meets his eyes. "I really am sorry for everything," she apologizes again.

"I know. Me too."

"I know."

He looks down at the sofa, traces the leather cushion's seam with the fingers of his free hand. "I'm not sure when I'll be able to trust you again," he tells her, because it's the truth.

"That's fair," she admits, picking invisible lint from the knee of her jeans. "I have a bit of work to do on that front as well."

"Fair enough."

"Can we start with promising no more lies, no more secrets?"

"Good idea." He lets go of her hand to offer her his pinky instead.

She rolls her eyes in a way that puts certainly in his soul that they can make this work. Her pinky hooks around his.

Potholes, detours, and dead ends littered the road ahead of them. Nothing about this was going to be easy. They needed to earn each other's forgiveness, regain each other's trust. But for the time being they had each other's hearts.

That was enough.

 _End._

* * *

Sonnet 101

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends  
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?  
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;  
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.  
Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,  
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fixed;  
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;  
But best is best, if never intermixed'?  
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?  
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee  
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb  
And to be praised of ages yet to be.  
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how  
To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now.

 _\- William Shakespeare_

* * *

A/N: I believe in being nice, but I don't believe in censorship. I suppose I can't have my cake and eat it too. Still I'd be remiss not to say it. All comments are welcome, but maybe try not to be a poop. ;)


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